Nowhere is safe in Lebanon anymore – Red Cross official

Earlier today, we featured reports from the Red Cross that an Israeli airstrike on an apartment building killed at least 18 people in Aitou, northern Lebanon.

Now the head of delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross is speaking to Sky News, telling us the targeted building was rented by internally displaced people.

Simone Casabianca Aeschlimann says more than 1.2 million people have been displaced.

“There is no place safe anymore in Lebanon,” she says, pointing also to the Israeli strike on central Beirut on Thursday.

“It’s very unsettling not to know where and when it’s going to happen next.

“So it’s extremely stressful for everybody: those who have already been displaced and, of course, also those who now see these attacks extending further into the Lebanese territory.”

She says it is unclear how many people have been injured, but the number is expected to be “very large” based on similar attacks.

Pictures taken by Reuters photographers show emergency crews working in the aftermath of the strike…

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Number killed rises to 21 in Israel’s first strike on northern Lebanon

The number of people killed in an Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in northern Lebanon has risen to 21, according to the Lebanese Red Cross. 

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military and it was not clear what the target was. 

The strike hit a small apartment building in the village of Aitou, which is part of the country’s Christian heartland in the north and far from Hezbollah’s main areas of influence in the south and east.

In our last post, a Red Cross official said it was the first strike on the region in the last year of hostilities.

Videos showed a large plume of smoke rising from the hilly village, with several destroyed cars next to a severely damaged building, as people tried to remove bodies from beneath rubble and trees.